The home of Bineesh Kodiyeri, son of Communist Party of India (Marxist) Secretary of State Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, and seven other places in Thiruvananthapuram were raided on Wednesday by the Enforcement Directorate investigating the money laundering case related to the drug trafficking in Bengaluru even when the state government withdrew the general consent given to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
A joint ED and Income Tax team searched Kodiyeri’s home and the business establishments of his friends and associates simultaneously. Central agencies received protection from the Central Reserve Police Force. There were intelligence reports that leftist youth teams may protest the raid.
Arrested on October 29, Kodiyeri is in ED custody in Bengaluru. He got into trouble after the accused Bengaluru drug dealer Anoop Mohammad gave a statement to the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), saying that Kodiyeri had helped him a lot in his “business venture”. Later, his name also appeared on Mohammad’s call list. He was indicted as the sixth defendant in the drug-related money laundering case.
During the investigation into the gold smuggling case, several agencies also found that drug trafficking and smuggling cases were interconnected. One of the gold smuggling defendants, KT Ramees, and the alleged drug dealer Mohammad were good friends. They also discovered that Ramees had made several trips to Bengaluru prior to his arrest. The DE suspects that Kodiyeri’s huge estates in Kerala and Karnataka may have been bought with the proceeds from narcotics and gold smuggling.
Meanwhile, the government has decided to withdraw the blanket consent given to the IWC to investigate cases in the state like four other opposition-ruled states.
“We will not allow the free operation of central agencies in the state. They are in a race to portray the state government in a bad light, ”said state law minister AK Balan.
Last month, the state government had to go to Superior Court to quash the CBI investigation into the Life Mission project. The court suspended him for two months. It’s a plan to build free housing for the homeless, but the irregularities came to light when central agencies investigated the gold smuggling case.
When the lockers of the main defendant in the smuggling case, Swapna Suresh, were opened, they obtained one million rupees in cash and two kg of gold. He later reportedly told agencies that this was the commission he received for closing a deal with an international aid agency ‘Red Crescent’, which funded the Life Mission project in Vadakkanchery in the Thrissur district.
The CBI’s anti-corruption unit subsequently filed a case under the Foreign Tax Regulation Act (FCRA). But the state government maintained that it will not fall within the scope of the FCRA and moved the court.
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